In some contexts, in the distribution of a product, for example, when a product is delivered to a customer, it may be important to confirm that the customer is the person he or she purports to be. This may be important when the product is one that the customer may or may not be entitled to receive. For example, in most jurisdictions, liquor can only be sold to and delivered to a person older than a certain age. In that context, for example, a liquor store can insist on seeing government-issued evidence that the person is old enough to buy liquor. If the liquor is to be delivered to the person, the checking must occur outside the store at the point of delivery. Similar requirements can exist for other kinds of products.
In many cases and for various reasons, liquor stores and other kinds of retail stores do not deliver to their customers, but rather depend on the customers coming into stores to buy products. In some industries, independently operated retail stores that sell certain kinds of products tend to market and sell those products in relatively small geographic areas to customers who live in or frequent those areas. In some cases, the retail stores are selling products that can be characterized as commodities. For those kinds of products, it is common to find competing independent retail stores located in space-apart locations each serving a relatively small geographic area in the vicinity of store.
Typically, such retail stores must engage successfully in a variety of business activities including purchasing, inventory management, customer identification, and in some cases delivery, among other things.